


Mr Norrell's Eccentricities

by Lempo Soi (Lemposoi)



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Chaptered, Community: jsmn-kinkmeme, M/M, Post-Canon, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4550412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemposoi/pseuds/Lempo%20Soi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No lady of his acquaintance had ever been half so coy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Curious Anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt asking for an awkward first time, but has gone beyond that.

"Wait, Jonathan. A blanket has made a knot and is digging into my side."

Jonathan Strange sighed and rolled back to his side as Mr Norrell sat up and straightened the blankets on their bed. A dozen or so lamps had been set around the room and kept burning continuously through Martinelli's writ of perpetuity. Strange could see the knot – a mere wrinkle – vanish with the first tug, and yet Norrell kept smoothing the blankets until the Prince Regent himself could have found no fault with them.

"We can desist, my dear." Though Norrell had called Strange by his first name for months now, Strange had never felt comfortable returning the favour, and so had settled upon 'my dear'. "Do not for my sake consent to something you do not wish to do. Reciprocity--"

"—is the bedrock of such relations, yes, I know. You have told me." Mr Norrell looked sadly at the bed, which was as smooth as any bed could be with Jonathan Strange in it. Even at his neatest and most fashionable, Strange had been followed everywhere by a trail of disorder, and he had not been at his neatest for quite some time. At least he had once more taken up shaving and bathing. "But I do... I do, er... It is not merely that I am sensible of the honour."

Strange grinned and rested his head on his palm. "I had gathered."

It had been some weeks since Strange had first acted upon his desire, felt for a longer time than he cared to think about, to sweep his former mentor up in his arms and shut him up with his mouth. Those weeks had been filled with rows, silences, inexplicable and almost certainly fictional headaches, long notes written in neat, small handwriting and short ones in a large, messy one, interspersed here and there with theoretical arguments and more kissing, which had then resolved itself into a kind of accord.

Strange had once longed with an overwhelming passion to impress Norrell, to engage his attention, and to argue him into submission – and now he wanted this. He was quite happy to refrain from questioning it any further. That, however, was not the case with Mr Norrell. Norrell fussed and fought and flew into a thousand agonies, but then all of a sudden he would grab Jonathan and kiss him with a great deal more passion than skill. It was then up to Jonathan to soothe and coax until the two of them were wrapped up in each other on the sofa, on an armchair by the fire, or on a blanket in the shadow of some disapproving Faerie hawthorn, mouths moving together and Norrell, more often than not, compliant as a kitten. After some time in Strange's arms, he would gasp and groan and very nearly rut against him - and then stop and scramble away. Then came the excuses – not now, not here, the blanket has made a knot. No lady of his acquaintance had ever been half so coy.

Strange had attempted before to explain to Norrell that the consummation he fled from was a most pleasant one, and had even launched into some descriptions of acts of love, but that only seemed to have distressed him more.

Norrell ceased to correct the bedclothes and sat in a sullen heap in his night-shirt and dressing-gown. He blew out a breath. "It is so very undignified."

"You are embarrassed."

Norrell nodded, avoiding Strange's eye.

That was a puzzle. Norrell contracted embarrassment like a disease. He could not be made at ease through humour – he did not understand jokes. He was terrified of letting go, while longing for it at the same time. It was the same with him whether it was love or magic, Strange mused. "Will you let me try something?" he asked, sitting up.

Norrell blinked at him. "Certainly."

"Hold on to the lattice-work here—" he indicated the headboard of the heavy, ornate bed, "—close your eyes, and trust me."

"You will stop if I ask," said Norrell urgently, but he was already sinking back onto the mattress, his fingers slipping through the lattice.

"Of course. You may give me any instructions you like, but if you want me to stop entirely, simply say 'Gregory Absalom was the greatest magician that ever lived'."

Mr Norrell started and frowned. "You are teasing me."

Strange very nearly giggled. "Close your eyes."

Norrell blinked again, then obeyed. Strange placed his palm on the side of Norrell's head, letting his fingers tangle in the untrimmed growth of dark curly hair, shot through with ample grey. Norrell frowned with his eyes closed as Strange leaned over him and kissed his forehead softly, then his closed eyes. Norrell stirred and murmured something about true sight.

Strange took his mouth. Norrell sighed and answered, his fingers still firmly entangled with the latticework. Strange climbed up on his knees (he was breeched and socked still) and continued to kiss him, sloppy and wet in a way he knew made Norrell lose his composure, and indeed Norrell moaned against his mouth.

"You do remember, my dear?" asked Strange. "'Gregory Absalom...'"

"For heaven's sake, get on with it."

Strange was not fond of being ordered around, so he slid his hand around Norrell to pinch his bottom through the cotton of his nightshirt. Norrell's exclamation was not genteel. Perhaps he had learned it from Childermass.

"Shh," said Jonathan and eased one knee between Mr Norrell's legs.

"Ah!" Norrell threw his head back, though Strange had barely begun yet. Sensing an opportune moment, he reached down and tugged Norrell's night-shirt up. "Oh, Jonathan, no..." Strange stopped. "Don't look," he begged.

Strange kissed his neck, which made a shudder run through Norrell's slight body. "I promise." He tugged the shirt up just enough to run his fingers up and down Norrell's exposed thigh.

Norrell's legs fell open, and Strange shifted his weight to press his thigh up against Norrell's crotch.

Norrell cried out and let go of the lattice. He clasped Strange's head to him, kissing him hard at first but then simply holding him in place with all the strength he had. Strange's hand was free, and so he brought it around underneath the night-shirt and up along Norrell's belly, through regions he'd never seen, until it brushed across the familiar sensation of a warm, moist cock.

Mr Norrell mewled like a cat and turned his head away, but did not ask him to stop. Strange pushed his thigh up gently, closed his fingers around Norrell's cock and stroked up along it. Norrell cried out again, louder this time. He squirmed under Jonathan's weight, up and down as if he didn't know whether he wanted to get away or hurry him up. "Oh god, Jonathan." But not a word about Gregory Absalom.

Strange sat up and slipped his other hand under the night-shirt as well. Its skirts still fell chastely over the sight. He didn't have to see the cock he was fondling to know it was thick and a little out of size with the small man it was attached to, and the knowledge was delightful to him - not because he had a preference either way, but because Strange could count the number of men whose members he was intimately familiar with by the fingers of one hand, and the pleasure of adding Gilbert Norrell to the their number was not inconsiderable. With his other hand he cupped Norrell's balls, rolling them gently in his palm. Norrell threw an arm over his eyes and cried out in something like agony, but he was rutting up into Strange's hand now and thrashing against the bedclothes. Strange leaned over and kissed him, and quite suddenly Norrell spilled in his hand with a cry.

"There now," said Strange, his breath hitching. "That wasn't so--"

"That was not what I wanted," said Norrell from underneath his arm. What Strange could see of his face was flushed and glistening with sweat.

"I'm sorry - have I hurt you?" asked Strange in alarm.

"No," said Norrell. "Not at all. It simply isn't what I had in mind. You see, I've given it some thought and I would like you... to take your pleasure with me. Please."

"My dear..."

Norrell dropped his arm and fixed his small blue eyes on Strange. "I'm very much afraid I cannot presently bring myself to do for you what you just did for me. Not yet, at any rate. Yet I want you to... Well, do you understand?"

Strange did not.

Norrell flushed an even deeper red. "Fuck me. I won't mind the pain. I understand some is to be expected. Only don't ask me to touch you. It is my peculiar constitution that I..."

Strange shut him up with a ravenous kiss. His cock was throbbing hard enough to sting. Gilbert Norrell with his night-shirt up around his waist was asking him to fuck him. He wasn't going to ask any questions.

The lamps in the room had begun to burn brighter, though neither of them had noticed. "Turn over," said Strange, and Norrell tore out of his dressing-gown and scrambled around to his hands and knees.

Strange had every intention of keeping his earlier promise. He did not look. Instead he spat into his hand and reached down. Norrell made a muffled sound into the pillow as Strange's fingers found his arse.

"Relax, my dear," Strange murmured. Norrell let out something between a sigh and a laugh, but he relaxed. Strange found surprisingly little resistance as he sank first one finger, then another inside. That seemed to have been Norrell's limit, though, as Strange felt them gripped tight even as he began to move them.

Norrell's shoulders were stiff at first, and his face remained buried in the pillow, but as Strange fucked him open with his fingers he began to sigh and then to move. Strange curled his fingers, just the way Grant had liked it, though it had left Arabella unmoved. Norrell jerked back and cried out.

Strange could hold back no more. He got up on his knees behind Mr Norrell and did undid his breeches.

"Jesus, Lord, oh Christ," prayed Mr Norrell as Strange entered him.

Strange dropped on one arm, curving above Mr Norrell's back, and used the other to steady Norrell's hips as he ground deeper inside him. Norrell shivered and moaned underneath him as he pulled out and pushed back in again into the tight heat of his body, alive to every thrust. The flames inside their lamps flared.

"Jonathan... Jonathan."

Strange fucked him gently at first, soft and slow and shallow, then picked up his pace as the approach of his climax began tugging at his cock. Each thrust invaded deeper until he was buried all the way in. "I suppose..." gasped Strange, "I should call you..." Mr Norrell grasped the lattice for leverage and shoved his arse back against him, "Gilbert."

Two of the lamps burst, which might have set the room on fire, had the flames not forthwith sputtered and been reduced to embers. Strange shivered, panting, stretched over Norrell, who was hardly in a better way.

"Jonathan, you're crushing me," said Norrell after a while.

"My apologies." Strange rolled on his back and lay there, drained and limp. The room was in complete darkness.

"Gilbert is appropriate, I believe," said Mr Norrell. There was a rustle, and Strange felt Norrell curling up next to him. "Although 'my dear' is fine, too." Strange was startled to feel the touch of a hand on his spent cock. It quickly withdrew.

"I am sorry," said Norrell. "I think I might get there yet. Thank you for understanding."

"My d-- Gilbert. What a paradoxical person you are. It was entirely my pleasure." He sought Norrell's hand out in the dark, and brought it to his lips.

They fell asleep in sheets not only tangled and knotted, but soiled as well, but it was several hours before Norrell thought to complain.


	2. A Misplaced Delicacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I wrote a chapter two. This was not the original plan.

Wonders can be worked within a few short weeks if one applies oneself. True, the two once-premier magicians of England might have been better off bending their efforts to breaking the curse that bound them in eternal darkness and exiled them to the Otherlands, but side projects tend to eat up time that has specifically been set aside for your main purpose, and so it was in this case. They were no closer to freedom, but they had got Gilbert Norrell comfortable with handling the male organ.

Time stretched and distorted in the Otherlands. In their own little world, shrouded in darkness, all clocks stopped at midnight. So far as time could be determined at all, it was past their lunch (rabbit stew and eggs that never spoiled, bartered at a fairy market some time ago) and still some hours before dinner. It was the hour they customarily spent in silent study in the library, interspersed by the occasional monologue or argument. That was how they had begun, certainly, but at the moment Mr Strange was slumped back in an armchair (moved from the drawing room to the library, since they had very little use for the former these days), enjoying the fruits of their progress.

"I trust you are comfortable, Jonathan," said Norrell. "I could find no other convenient support for my knee."

"Quite comfortable," said Strange with some effort. "Only I beg you, Gilbert, do not pause to shift again, or I shall not be held accountable for any uncivil outburst."

Mr Norrell tutted. He did not approve of strong language. He let his knee rest where it was, propped between the gentle upwards slope of the chair's arm and Strange's thigh, and did not pause. Mr Strange's breeches were undone and his shirt tucked up. As was their domestic habit these nights, they were both in their shirtsleeves, with Norrell wrapped in his dressing gown and Strange now half out of his banyan. Norrell's oiled left hand worked Mr Strange's exposed member from the base to the head, while his right caressed Mr Strange's bollocks with maddening delicacy.

He leaned down to kiss Strange's gasping mouth to accompany these attentions. Strange grabbed his head convulsively and pulled him closer, which made Mr Norrell's slippered foot scramble for purchase on the floor. His right hand abandoned its task to seek support on the armchair.

"No, no," moaned Strange. "Gilbert, please."

"I cannot pleasure you if you push me about so!" huffed Mr Norrell.

"The floor," suggested Strange.

"It is cold. No, Jonathan, be guided by me for once and exercise control."

Strange growled in frustration but grabbed the arms of the chair instead of his lover. Norrell rewarded him with a tug, his thumb drawing gentle circles on the underside of Strange's prick. Strange drove up into his all-too-lightly grasping hand as much as he could.

"That's better, my love," said Norrell and kissed his neck, trailing his lips from Strange's exposed collarbone up to his ear while he frigged him, still with that slow pace, still with that light touch.

"I am going to pin you to the bed and bugger you until you can't _breathe_ ," promised Strange. "Gilbert. Please. I'm not made of china. Frig me like you mean it. Or fuck me, for Christ's sake, you're driving me mad."

Mr Norrell, whose breath had picked up the moment Strange had mentioned the act of sodomy, started and stopped. "Ah! Jonathan, are you not yet recovered from your flashbacks? It must be months since you last..."

Mr Strange swore long and loud with a soldier's creativity and closed his own hand over Norrell's on his cock. He thrust up twice into the fist they made together and spent, spilling over his own belly and undershirt, his body stretching taut in the convulsion of orgasm before slumping back in the chair. Norrell recovered himself in time to accompany the aftershocks of Strange's orgasm with a few hearty strokes.

When he was certain Strange was done, Norrell sat back on a footstool, dug out a handkerchief from his dressing gown pocket, and wiped his hands. He had never been a lover of art, but by the light of the fire and a dozen lamps, Mr Strange, prone and panting with bare skin peeking out from under layers of dishevelled clothing, made a pretty enough sight to make him smile. For a moment he mused that Mr Lawrence would have done well with such material, before returning to himself enough to be mortified at the thought of anyone else ever seeing Mr Strange in such an intimate state. He supposed Mrs Strange must have, and suffered a moment of discomfort at the thought, not a little shot through with guilt.

Strange looked down and grinned at him with that dear old crooked smile. "I don't suppose I could trouble you to lend me that?" Norrell handed him the handkerchief and watched him clean himself up. "Shall we go to bed?"

"Whatever for?" asked Mr Norrell. "We have barely started on our map, and it must be hours before it will be time for dinner."

Mr Strange cocked his head and studied him. Then he rolled himself off the chair and onto his knees before the footstool. He caught Norrell's mouth with his own and pressed his hand at the front of Norrell's breeches, thumb and palm seeking out his member, which despite their moment of rest remained responsive. "I mean to keep my promise, Gilbert." He rubbed his discovery and heard Norrell breathe in sharply. "And as you said, the floor is cold."

"Ah," said Norrell. "Very well, then." But he did not seem displeased.

They both rose from bed hungry nearly an hour later and decided to have an early dinner. This left the hours between midnight and, well, midnight, for putting together a tentative map of the corner of Faerie Minor they had so far covered. It coincided quite wonderfully with Dr Pale's, though his 16th century cartographer's approach to distances had been whimsical and several kingdoms had changed names and rulers since his time.

High above Hurtfew Abbey, the stars, foreign but no longer unfamiliar, kept turning.


	3. A Want of Restraint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this fic is a run-away train now. This chapter contains no smut whatsoever.

Galen Martinelli had been a late Aureate magician, but unlike the often sloppy and sparse texts most Aureates produced, his style was lyrical and arduous to transcribe. Relevant information was lost among pages and pages of text in which the magician attempted to describe the emotion evoked by sunrises. In studying Martinelli, access to Norrell's indexing system was proving invaluable. There were references for Martinelli's other mentions of sunrises and sunsets (one of many recurring themes) but more importantly to every spell or component of magical theory hidden in the reams of Mr Martinelli's ecstacies.

Going through the book with the cards by his side, Jonathan Strange found, between an epiphany about daisies and a eulogy to solitude, a spell for sending despatches between England and the other worlds via bees. He remembered reading before that bees travel across the worlds, but a spell for using them as messengers? That was new – at least, it was something he'd never seen before in a genuine book of magic. He scribbled a note on the card, then remembered he had to return it to its place or Norrell would be cross for hours, and copied the note on his sleeve.

"How should one go about capturing a bee?" he asked Mr Norrell later as they were preparing for bed.

"In general or in our current situation?" Norrell took off his reading glasses, cleaned them and placed them in their embroidered case on the night-stand. "The swamps of Hearts-Asunder are, I understand, populated by swarms of night-fliers. We might have some success there. Of course the simplest method would be to affect a summoning, though as we know from Dr Pale, animal summoning can go awry if the magician does not take proper care of his wording. Whatever would you want bees for, Jonathan?"

Strange kicked off his under-clothes and climbed under the blankets mother-naked, as was his habit these days. Mr Norrell felt the chill more than he did and therefore tended to overheat his poor lover with heavy blankets and a hot water bottle besides. "I've been looking into Martinelli. We never did solve the problem of direct long-distance communication beyond scrying, and as you always say, it is most imprecise. But we were then in England and the Peninsula! Martinelli had a spell for sending messages between the worlds – you indexed it yourself."

"Ah! Yes – there are a few like it mentioned in Sutton-Grove, though I believe Martinelli's is the only one to be found in my collection. You never did pay sufficient attention to Sutton-Grove, Jonathan." Norrell arranged his nightcap around his ears and joined Strange under the covers.

Strange crawled up and lay his head on Mr Norrell's shoulder. "I have been neglecting my wife, Gilbert. It must be months since I last spoke to her. We parted on good terms, to be sure, and she can hardly suppose me in greater danger here than I was in the war. I do not think she has been overly worried. The difficulty, of course, is that she is in England, which was already lousy with English magicians at the time we departed. A visit is quite out of the question, unless we wish to wrench a Mr Tantony or a Mrs Bullworth from their friends and relations and set another place at dinner." He paused for a moment to consider that a little variety of company might not go amiss, but discarded the thought as uncharitable. "But a message – that seems the least that an absent husband owes. The Greysteels will have taken good care of her, but there might be practical difficulties... I may not have remembered to add her name to our family deeds."

"Certainly you must do your duty," said Mr Norrell, but he did not sound very pleased about it. "Not to have set your affairs in order was decidedly neglectful. We will look into it first thing in the morning."

Strange spoke a word and the lamps in the room extinguished, plunging the two of them into perfect darkness. He sighed and slung a leg over Norrell's. Eventually he would get too hot and roll away to curl up on his own side of the bed. So they lay for a moment.

"Jonathan?"

"Mmm?"

"You will not... tell her about our situation, will you? You will not tell her about... er, our... relations?"

Strange grinned in the darkness against Norrell's shoulder. What a difference it made to Norrell's language when Arabella's image had been conjured up! 'Fucking' became 'relations'. In fact, Strange was not at all sure he needed to tell Arabella a thing for her to instantly know what was on his mind. Aloud, he said, "I don't believe I shall discuss buggery with my much-missed wife, no."

"Ah. Well, that is a good thing." Then, after a while, "Of course you must miss her a great deal."

"Gilbert, it is late and I am tired. I will pet you and assure you as much as you might desire in the morning. Now hush and let us go to sleep."

"I've always maintained that a magician shouldn't marry--"

Strange spoke a word and sat up as light flooded back into the bedroom. Under his glare, Norrell pulled the covers up higher over his chest, but glared back with equal hostility. "My marriage, or what I should do or discuss with my wife is not your concern, Gilbert."

"I admit I am not a man of the world, Mr Strange, but if I am to play your whore I might naturally be interested in discovering what position that leaves me in!"

Norrell's face was screwed up in anger and hurt, but his words had left Strange immune to the latter. "I think it's best I sleep in my old room tonight. Good night, Mr Norrell."

Strange's feet found his slippers on the floor and he scooped up his banyan and a lamp against the chill of the old walls. He did not look back.

-

There was, of course, no morning. Strange began to return to consciousness in the cold, dusty bedroom at the end of the hallway, empty except for Strange's own half-eaten and mummified apple from weeks ago. The single lamp with its ever-burning flame still sat at his bedside. He sighed and let himself wake slowly from dreams of chasing bees with a butterfly-net with Henry Woodhope.

He had left most of his clothes in Mr Norrell's bedroom, so he wrapped himself up in his banyan and made his way downstairs and out. They had stopped, as usual, near a stream. It was summer outside their night, but even so the waters under the darkness were chilly. Plunging into them served to wake Strange up the rest of the way.

He did not think he'd wandered too far yet. He chanced a swim up to where a patch of lilypads were singing. He remembered just in time to add a ward against enchantments (picture a band of rowan berries upon your brow and repeat the secret names of ash and willow). The lilies' mouths opened and closed, and closer by he could see they sported teeth.

There was wrench in the air, that familiar sensation of the world being rearranged, and an exclamation behind him. Strange was not entirely displeased to inconvenience Norrell this morning. He turned to see the man stepping gingerly back from the river's bank. A foot more and he would have been knee-deep in it.

Norrell was dressed in his morning coat and a brushed wig and was carrying a tray with cups, a pot, jam and scones. Tea was pooling in the bottom of the tray. "Mr Strange, really!" he said. "You've made me spill your tea."

" _My_ tea, did you say?" asked Strange, wading out of the water and shaking his head like a soaked mastiff. "You have admitted your ignorance in such matters, but I can assure you it is not a necessary part of a whore's duty to make breakfast."

Mr Norrell stiffened and his lip twisted in disgust. "Please do not throw my own words back at me in this manner, sir. They were spoken in haste. I was coming to you to apologize."

"You, apologize?" Strange laughed, though in truth he was already thawing. He shook himself again, this time adding some magic to the act to dry off, and walked back along the bank to pick up his banyan. Norrell trotted behind him with the tray.

"You were quite right, Mr Strange, and I hope we can put the whole thing behind us. Mr Strange, please slow down, this tray is rather heavy."

"Here." Strange shrugged his banyan on and took the tray off Mr Norrell. "There now, Gilbert, you are forgiven. Wherever did you find raspberry preserves?"

"In the past I have been in the habit of holding on to you rather too tightly, and the rift it has caused between us has given a great deal of pain to many, including myself... Though I am not sure I can say myself the most, as I might once have. I am determined not to make the same mistake again. So you see, you are at perfect liberty, with my apologies and all my good will, and I hope we are friends again."

They had reached the steps of Hurtfew Abbey by the time Mr Norrell had finished his speech, and Norrell pushed the heavy doors open with some effort. Strange followed him to the breakfast room, set the tray on the table and sat down to dip a roll in some spilled tea and jam. Norrell dropped down on a chair opposite, avoiding Strange's eyes, though he said, "Mr Strange, you are hardly dressed for breakfast."

"I wonder if we ever were."

Mr Norrell looked confused. "Dressed?"

"Friends."

"Certainly we were. Are, I hope."

"We were master and pupil, then enemies, then lovers." Mr Norrell flinched at the word. "I don't think for a moment you thought of me as a friend."

"But I did," insisted Norrell. "One can be inconveniently in love with one's friend and it will not redefine that relationship as anything other than friendship. I was your teacher, to be sure, but your master? I never felt so, though I tried... In any case I am not sure whether two men can be considered 'lovers' in the same sense as a man and a woman. Achilles and Patroclus, or Dr Pale and Francis Pevensey--"

"Francis Pevensey was a woman."

"So you say and I continue to disagree. Jonathan, really, you are determined to interrupt me a great deal today."

Strange leaned over the breakfast-table and rested his chin on one hand. "At least I am 'Jonathan' once again."

"What I am trying to say, Mr Strange, is that I have allowed my regard for you – that is to say – our relationship has always been characterized by a certain want of restraint on my side, which I can only excuse by referring to my inexperience with close friendships – nay, with... well, sir, with..."

"Love."

"Precisely." Norrell frowned and studied the raspberry preserves, twirling an undipped spoon in anxious fingers.

"I guessed it. Well, Arabella guessed it."

Mr Norrell closed his eyes as if in pain. "I would rather you had not told me that. It is a private matter and not one I am proud of. But, as I said, I make no claim. It is not my place to make any claim, and I will... I will not allow myself to be so dishonourable as to try and prevent you from contacting your wife, or indeed returning to her side. I have had more happiness in these past few months than I altogether deserve." He finished with a decisive nod. "I have never loved another as I love you, sir. But that is my eccentricity and my responsibility alone."

"Indeed." Strange dropped his bread-roll and came up to kneel next to Mr Norrell, between his knees, and angled his face up. Norrell's fingers twined in his wet curls hesitantly as they kissed. "I cannot say the same," Strange continued conversationally after a while, "though you have the distinction of being the most difficult and exasperating person I have ever been in love with. And Mrs Strange is not what you would call pliant or obedient, either."

"Jonathan." Norrell's voice broke on the name, and he pulled Jonathan up into a fierce kiss.

"What do we do now?" he asked after they parted again.

"Finish our breakfast," said Strange. "And then look for bees."

 


	4. Bursts of Reluctant Generosity (Not Unwarranted)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be gennish epistolary fiction, but I've been cursed with visitors and have been waiting to get time for myself all week. I'm not going to waste it writing anything other than fucking. Plot can wait.

"What would you like?" asked Mr Norrell. 

It had been a long day. The bees that carried Strange's letter to his wife – a bulging bundle of papers sealed with wax - had been despatched through the King's Roads not half an hour before, bound to Strange's spell of path-finding. Now, Strange's eyes kept wondering back towards the mirrors of Ashfair, as if expecting the insects to tumble out again carrying something smaller and in altogether finer hand-writing.

Between their two London houses, Ashfair, and Hurtfew Abbey, the magicians had over two dozen bedrooms to choose from. As the path had been opened between Ashfair and England, they had chosen its best guest bedroom, down the hall from the Stranges' now sacrosanct marital bed. Norrell had never visited Ashfair while it had still resided in England and even after all these months felt somewhat like an unwanted visitor in these dour, empty halls. Strange declared he had felt the same himself ever since he was a little boy. In this room, the furnishings were worn but magnificent, with yellow-green and black curtains and bedding that reminded Norrell of the scales of some enormous serpent. It did not help his sense of unease, but Strange was there, and so there he, too, would stay.

"I suppose we cannot expect a reply until she has had time to compose one," said Strange. He was full of restless energy, taking off first one sock, then pacing the room and stopping in front of the mirror before sitting down to remove the other one. Mr Norrell shook out his shirt.

"Jonathan, please attend to me for a moment."

"Yes, of course, my dear." Strange ran a hand through his hair and gave Norrell a distracted smile. 

"What would you like?" Norrell repeated.

"What do you mean?"

Mr Norrell frowned and pursed his lips. "We may very soon be reuniting with Mrs Strange, in one way or another. To speak plainly, Jonathan, I expect your... inclinations to return to their natural course. There is little to be done about mine, which, thank God, I have found manageable in the past. I can see that she is filling your mind already. But our relations have not been without their pleasures and if this is to be the last time I can hold your interest at all in that regard... You must tell me what you'd like, Jonathan. I shan't object." He clutched at the front of his shirt. "Although... I don't see how we have left out anything of any significance."

Strange had been half-ready to argue what was obviously a lie, and claim his male lover had his full attention while the absent female one was out of his mind entirely, or then begin another argument in favour of letting Jonathan do whatever Jonathan wanted, but both were, for the moment, forgotten. Mr Norrell's last remark had derailed his line of thought. "Any significance?" he repeated incredulously.

Discovering what Mr Norrell did or did not like had been slow going. They had established with some certainty that Norrell liked – nay, loved – fucking, provided he was the one taking it, but Strange had to take measures not to touch Mr Norrell's prick unless asked. Granted, he often was, specifically after he'd been buried inside Mr Norrell for a while, which tended to reduce the former first magician of England to a rutting and rumpled mess. Furthermore, Strange had had to accept that the night-shirt stayed on. He might be allowed to slip a hand up all the way to Mr Norrell's chest, but never two at once. Most frustratingly of all, Strange had begun to think that if he ever wanted a good rogering himself, he'd have about as much chance with Norrell as he would have had with Arabella.

Mr Norrell liked kissing. He liked it a great deal, and would often be quite satisfied if it went no further. He liked Strange's hair, though it had grown much too long to be fashionable, and indeed Strange's hair had never been so well combed, since Mr Norrell took to untangling it every morning, running a comb and a brush through the greying dark auburn curls until Strange was quite impatient for his morning tea. He liked Jonathan's long fingers twined with his own on the pillow, or over the desk as they read together. Very rarely had Norrell asked what Strange might like, and even more rarely had that been granted.

Mr Norrell blinked at him in irritation. "You have had your pleasure, I dare say."

"As have you! I'm rather inclined to think you've had the easier time of it."

"I haven't required anything too strenuous, I don't think, or very much out of the ordinary way of things."

"Neither have you put yourself to a great deal of trouble!"

"Jonathan, I have been at some great pains to overcome certain disinclinations... I was only now offering you anything you wanted!"

"You were, weren't you?" said Strange with a grin, kicked off his remaining sock and lay back on the bed. "Come, then."

Norrell climbed uncertainly on the bed and leaned in for a kiss. Strange steadied his head with one hand, but answered with only mild interest. "You'll have to do better than that," he said when they parted. 

"Tell me what to do, then."

"Take off your shirt."

Norrell stiffened. "You only ask that of me because you know I do not want to."

Strange raised a challenging eyebrow. Mr Norrell, piqued, threw off his cap and yanked off his shirt in one quick movement, as if to do it too quickly to stop himself. 

Strange stared. He'd touched this body often enough, but to see it now in bright lamplight was quite another thing. There was the scar he'd felt snaking up under Norrell's left armpit. There was the trail of grey and brown hair across his belly, appearing again as a light smattering on his chest - which was heaving in what could be anger, fear, or excitement. It was not a young man's body, or an athletic man's. Strange reached out to Norrell's waist and tugged him down on the covers beside him, then kissed him, his hand snaking down on to Norrell's thigh. "Marvellous," he murmured. "I didn't think you'd actually do it."

"I simply do not understand you, Jonathan," complained Mr Norrell as Strange let his hand wander, running along the inside of Norrell's thigh, but there was a touch of relief in his tone, too. Strange kissed him again, tonguing his lips open for one of those breathless kisses that could close down an argument within seconds. 

"Well, you have my attention, Gilbert," said Strange, rolled over on his elbows and knees, and proceeded to kiss and suck at Norrell's neck, his hands – both of them – roaming freely over his suddenly, delightfully naked body. 

"Jonathan," Norrell panted, bringing one leg up around Strange's waist, only to have it pushed firmly back. 

"Not tonight. I know you're mad for it, my dear. No, I think tonight you get to do some of the work."

"Jonathan, please," begged Norrell. 

Strange grinned madly down at his lover. "Breaking your promise already?"

"What is it that you want? Name it."

"What do you think?" Strange moved down for another kiss, and then another, until Norrell was breathy and pliant."I want you inside me."

"Oh, very well." Norrell was flushed, but shoved up with sudden strength, and managed to topple Strange onto his side. They kissed some more. "Where—where is the salve, then?"

Jonathan giggled somewhat maniacally and stretched back to grab for his banyan on the floor. They'd already gone through much of Mr Norrell's rather extensive cabinet of lotions, but there'd always be more to be had in Italy or Germany, should they find the time to visit a night market somewhere suitably removed from English magicians. He handed it to Norrell, which led to another exchange of glances, one merciless, the other anguished, before Mr Norrell uncorked the bottle and kissed him again, presumably so neither of them could look at what his hand was doing. 

Strange hummed happily and spread his long legs as Norrell's fingers probed and finally clumsily thrust inside his hole, slick with salve. Growing bolder, Norrell shoved two fingers in deeper, and Strange rutted against his hand with a happy sigh. 

"Jonathan," said Mr Norrell with something like surprise. 

"Gilbert, you promised."

Norrell's fingers slipped out and he climbed on top of Strange with unaccustomed energy, as if whatever tension had held him back had snapped and now drove him forward and up between Strange's legs. He was trembling and stiff, but Strange wrapped his legs around him and reached down to guide him in. His body swallowed the tip, but Mr Norrell hesitated until Strange wriggled against him impatiently. Then, he thrust. 

Jonathan threw his head back with pleasure. "Again, if you please, my dear," he advised, and Norrell obliged, his own breath coming ragged now. 

"You will be the death of me, Jonathan. Jonathan." He repeated the name like a prayer, like a confession, and began fucking him carefully, then with growing confidence, driven on by Jonathan's stream of increasingly filthy encouragement.

"That's it," said Strange with a bout of heady laughter. His feet were swinging freely in the air, so Mr Norrell grabbed hold of his ankles and pushed them up, the better to angle himself, and Strange lost all power of speech. 

"Are... are you all right?" asked Norrell, though he wasn't at all sure he could stop now, now with the incredible tight heat clutching him and his dear Jonathan so wanton underneath him. 

"YES for fuck's sake!" shouted Strange, pushed his hips up off the bed, and came, shooting his seed in three separate bursts. 

"Y-you did not even touch yourself," whimpered Norrell just before his words were stripped from him and he came, spreading wet heat inside Jonathan Strange.

"H-h-happy?" he managed after a moment. Strange opened his arms and Norrell scuttled up to cuddle between them. 

"You don't have to make it sound like such a chore," said Strange, but kissed Norrell again before it could turn into another argument. 

Norrell sighed and rested his head on Strange's shoulder. He was still trembling, though the tension seemed to be abating somewhat. "God, I need a cup of tea," he said, and Strange burst into another fit of giggles.


End file.
